


The First Step Is A Choice

by saya4haji



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, F/F, F/M, Multi, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Recovery, Red Room (Marvel), Redemption
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:49:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29630043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saya4haji/pseuds/saya4haji
Summary: A character study of Natasha Romanov. An examination of what it takes to make a Black Widow, and what it takes to begin the rebirth of one.My attempt at seriously looking at the 'predatory sexy spy' tropes surrounding Natsaha. Exploring the cost of creating such a character and inverting expectations.Also, the first steps that Natasha needs to take for any future Clint/Natasha/Laura relationship.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, pre relantionshionship Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov/Laura Barton
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	The First Step Is A Choice

**Author's Note:**

> I went on a kick of reading Natasha Romanov stories. I particularly enjoyed 'nor need we power or splendor by shellybelle' which explored Clint/Natasha/Laura in a really patient and character focused way with an intriguing narrative which was split between past and present.
> 
> Afterwards, I really wanted to explore Natasha's character for myself and so tried writing my own interpretation of how she would view the world and people around her after a childhood of training and brainwashing. 
> 
> I hope it is as thought provoking for readers as I found it to write. 
> 
> Thanks to Rhino(RhinoMouse) for reading this one first, pointing out errors and sharing their thoughts.

Natalia Alianovna Romanova never understood people’s obsession with sex. In the Red Room it was another skill to master. Just another way of using her body; like a martial art. At best, it was a subject and ability which she mastered with the same genius and attention to detail that she mastered all the other lessons the Red Room commanded her to.

The Mistress gave her no choice. Perfection or death. That was the Red Room way.

Natalia remembers her body being moulded and beaten into the master assassin. She remembers the bloody toes and bright red cane marks on her thighs as she learned ballet. She remembers the screaming as her youthful muscles and ligaments were stretched on devices which have since been banned by the Geneva Convention, all in the name of giving her a gymnast’s flexibility. She remembers the bloody knuckles and broken bones of martial arts training.

Sex was just another lesson to learn.

She remembers the stretch, the burn, the ache, the strained thighs, stiff fingers, throbbing jaw, the choking and gagging of mastering that skill.

To kill a mark from a distance a Black Widow had to be able to use a sniper rifle, so they were trained in them. They learned maths to calculate trajectory, were given advanced lessons in rifle maintenance and recoil. They practiced for months, years, until they could strike any target with a precision to make Artemis jealous.

Sex was no different.

Natalia no longer remembers how old she was when she first began her seduction training but she knows she was young.

Too young by modern standards.

Natalia remembers that having her first menses triggered that training. The red spotting on her thread bare mattress caused the Mistress to frown. Little Natalia had thought she had a wound from training which had continued to bleed in her sleep. The Red Room cared very little about explaining the details of menstruation: considering what graduation was, she supposes there would have been little point.

A week after her first menses, Ivan returned with a pair of men and her training had begun in earnest.

Like all training it had hurt at first. Muscles burning and tearing until they became used to the abuse, until they grew stronger and used to this new skill. Muscles tear and regrow stronger. Ligaments stretch and gain more flexibility. Tissue gives and learns new shapes to suit the body’s need.

Natalia learns to sink into the temporary physical pleasure that orgasm and friction can give. She learns to ignore the partner, the place, the time, the pain, the rare pleasures and often humiliations. She learns to focus only on physical responses that please her...the rare times she feels them at all. The rest of the time Natalia treats sex like just another part of her undercover work. She learns to wear masks. She learns how to twist her face to project wanton lust, shy desire, ecstacy, tender love and even adoration. Natalia learns when a partners want her to wimper, to sigh, to mewl or groan. Natalia learns when to fake her bodies trembling pleasure, when to thrust with abandon or to play act a cathartic orgasm. Every sound and movement of her body is calculated and orchestrated. Every sound and movement she makes, that is needed to make sex exactly what her targets wants, she learns with diligence.

Natalia learns to play the human body with nimble fingers like a genius violinist. With deft flicks of her fingers she can reduce a mark to tears or to bliss. Natalia learns to suck, to lick, to kiss and to bite. She learns how to read the bodies and eyes of her targets to know their preferences, to know the pressure they want, the power she can display or hide.

Over the next four years Natalia would experience every form of sex. Every orifice, every kink and every imaginable power dynamic was explored and trained. Natalia could play the innocent virgin or the savage seductress. She was trained with the male guards, with rich oligarchs who paid for the privilege of helping her and her sisters with their training. She trained with Ivan as punishment when she failed the Mistress’ expectations. She trained with the politicians and soldiers that Ivan used her to reward. Natalia trained with her sisters, learned to please women as well as men despite her handlers sneering distaste for such perversions.

A Black Widow must be armed with all possible weapons.

Natalia never understood the appeal of sex.

The rest of the world seemed obsessed with it. From the most powerful politicians to the lowest peasants. Sex appeal, flirtation, straightforward sex or more exotic endeavours could bring people to their knees. Sex could be used to bend and subvert anyone.

Sex was a lever to use against targets. A universal tool to gain entrance to a target, to blackmail or to trick a mark into a more vulnerable position to kill them.

Sex is like a drug. An addiction for the masses which Natalia is immune to.

Natalia never understood the appeal, and perhaps that is what made her a good Black Widow. That lack of desire, that detachment from body and emotions.

Sex was like running to Natasha. Strenuous and sweaty. A little unpleasant, but sometimes necessary.

Sex is the one constant in Natalia’s repertoire over the years. 

Since those early days of the 1920’s the Soviet Union and even the KGB has fallen. Guns, chemical weapons, poisons, creating legends, forging documents, driving vehicles, flying planes and a whole host of other skills and resources have changed in her century-long career as the Black Widow. The computer revolution called for new skills to be learned, but while taking photos of a philandering husband she has seduced, or hacking a biometric lock has called for her to adapt, sex remains constant.

Sure, the kinks may be more wide spread and the standard for what is scandalous may have risen but sex is constant. The sexual revolution has merely made people more desperate to be part of it, made them easier targets.

Natalia has seduced Kings, Queens, Presidents, Politicians of every colour and creed, priests, nuns, CEO’s, museum curators, security consultants, bank managers, prison guards…the list goes on. All of them were targets at some point. All of them were easy. She approached them with surgical precision. She discovered their sexual tastes, researched their characters and then gave them their deepest desire: from the weak minded secretary who needed dominated, to the misogynistic CEO who needed to be dominated by a maternal figure willing to punish.

Natalia has played every role and character. She has fit every preference. She has dyed her hair brunette, blonde, black and worn every form of wig imaginable. She has worn contacts and used fake tan. She has hunched her posture to seem smaller and worn six inch heels to gain needed height. She has tailored her behaviour, makeup and clothes to appear anything from 16 to 40 years old.

Sex was just another tool. A little strenuous, sometimes unpleasant and maybe a little messy, but considering she has tortured and murdered her way around the world a dozen times over, that is hardly a deterrent.

After Natalia broke her conditioning and burned down the Red Room she had continued to use sex as a tool when she sold her skills to the highest bidder. 

After the turn of the Millenia Natalia is kept busy with work. Murder for hire is still common but corporate espionage, sowing political scandal and honey trapping are becoming even more popular. The technological era has made the creation of online scandal easier while the scientific revolution in law enforcement has made hiding the secrets of murder all the more difficult. Not impossible, but requiring more time and effort. Why kill a political rival when he can be blackmailed by a simple sex tape? Why kill your way to a bank vault when you can seduce the keys and access codes from the manager?

Sex is still a tool.

At least it was. It was until Clint.

* * *

Natalia was calling herself Natasha when she met him. Afterwards, it becomes her name.

She was claiming to be born in 1984 and had sown enough misinformation that even the majority of Russia believed that The Black Widow was a title passed down to multiple female assassins over the years.

Her sisters’ high mortality rate and the second failed attempt of Red Room style experiments in the 80s mean that Natalia was pretty confident her cover would hold up.

Clint was sent to kill Natasha in 2002.

Natasha admits to herself now that she had been sloppy. Perhaps a subconscious desire to be caught? An unspoken need to make it all end? Suicide by SHIELD maybe?

Natasha had been choosing increasingly high profile targets back then. She had been taking more risks and being less careful. It was inevitable that SHIELD would send someone for her.

Natasha just didn’t expect Clint.

The fact that the glass in the high priced law office that represents most of Boston’s mobsters has been secretly replaced with bullet proof panes was what saved her.

Clint’s arrow drove into the glass window of the corridor that Natasha was sashaying down toward her target. For a split second she thought a bird had struck the glass but the spiderweb of cracks and the shiny arrow embedded in the glass perfectly placed above her heart had all of her instincts jumping into overdrive.

She rolled to the side and that was all that saved her from the second arrow with its black tipped head that cut through the bullet proof glass like butter, a mere six inches from where its predecessor had failed.

Natasha bobbed, wove and ran to the stairwell at the end of the corridor. People screamed and lawyers who peaked out of their fancy offices quickly retreated as a hail of arrows sailed through the windows.

Natasha jumped down the concrete staircase and raced into the street. She controlled her breathing with decades of practice. Her escape route has been meticulously planned. Most operatives would have gone to the underground carpark, taken a car and made instantly for the interstate.

Natasha was not most operatives. Once she reached the outdoors she reduced her pace to match the milling crowds. She ducked her head, discarded her business jacket and set a brisk, but unhurried pace through the crowd. She stuck to main streets, wove between tourists and local crowds. She got lost through shops and checked her six in windows. She passed through a department store, efficiently purchased a new outfit and changed with deft movements.

The business woman Natalia was when she entered the store was quickly replaced six minutes later by the tired mom version of Natasha in comfortable jeggings, oversized handbag, white trainers, an oversized wifebeater, patterned cardigan and a slouched cap. She placed a tired expression on her face and set a brisk pace as she set out across the city.

In thirty minutes she was heading towards the touristy hotel she had reserved a very specific room in from her phone as she walked. This was one of three chain hotels in this city that she has stealthily broken into and stashed IDs, weapons, disguises and medical gear in. The stashes were hidden in a hollow behind the tiles in the shower of the en-suite.

Removing tiles, cutting stash gaps in stud walls and repairing the damage with no sign of her work was one of Natasha’s more devious moves in the modern years. The spy movies of this century are still obsessed with the idea of operatives having safe houses in cities around the world. Natasha snorts at the idea even now.

Such things only exist with the backing of national governments or agencies. An individual operative with a safe house in every city in America where they may work is unfeasible, never mind every city in the world. Easier to rent rooms, break into hotels or use vacant properties. Natasha can’t even fathom the headache of managing the taxes and property inheritances on more than the three properties she has maintained the last fifty years under three different identities. Too much property creates paper trails. Paper trails lead to death.

Natasha checked into the hotel, pounded up the stairs to the room she needed. Dashing inside she closed the blinds and then raced to the en-suite. A quick application of force and she had extracted the IDs, cash and a new disguise from the stash gap.

A flash of irrational guilt at the thought of the staff who would discover her property damage flashed through her.

Natasha exited her room under a new blond wig and dressed in a plum pant suit. The keys to the car she had in long term storage 15minutes from the hotel felt cool in her hand.

Natasha marched back towards the stairs and pushed the door open, only to be confronted by a well-muscled man in black cargo pants, a dark muscle shirt and carrying what looks like an instrument case on his back.

Their eyes meet.

His face didn't react to seeing her. No flash of attraction or apology for nearly running into her. That gave him away. Natasha has always known objectively what she looks like. No man passes her by without some subconscious recognition reflecting in their eyes or on their face.

His face was cool and professional. His chiselled arms had faint marks that Natasha knew were faded knife scars.

Simultaneously they dove at each other. They were too close to draw guns.

They crashed into each other and in a mass of limbs they tumbled down the flight of concrete stairs together. They wrestled, punched and kicked.

Natasha flipped back and they stood separated by six feet of space on the landing of the 3rd floor stairwell.

“You’re good. Would have lost me if I had followed you on the ground,” the man said.

Natasha allowed a flirtatious smile to cross her plum lips. He was fast. Skilled. If either of them had reached for a knife or a gun in that small space, the other would have had enough time to be on them. They couldn’t even blink.

The man’s eyes were focused on Natasha with an intensity that she had rarely felt before. She knew that he would be a challenge to beat. Excitement and something akin to relief coursed through Natasha. He may even have been good enough to finish her she thought. To end her there and then in that tight space. All the blood on her hands weighed her down. Her ledger was dripping. So many innocents, so many needless atrocities. She was a monster and it was only right for a monster to be slayed. Death was the only rest she would get she thought. Death would free her. After a century of torture and murder, death would have been a release. 

“Arrows? What are you Robin Hood?” she had asked in a subdued attempt at distraction and humour

The man’s lips had quirked into a smile, “They call me Hawkeye, Black Widow.”

Natasha had felt her breathing pick up a little as she watched him then. He had known what she was. He may have stood a chance.

“Hawkeye? What are you a comic book hero?” She had bated.

His grin grew almost feral and he snorted, “An agent of SHIELD.”

Alarm and joy raced through Natasha. SHIELD back then to her had meant that enemy backup was inbound. It meant if she had wanted to get away she had to kill him quickly or contend with a small army of highly trained SHIELD goons.

Falling to the good guys. There could have been worse ways to go she mused.

At some unseen signal they lashed out at each other.

Adrenaline coursed through her blood. They struck, kicked, punched, whipped out knives, disarmed each other and slammed themselves against the cold concrete of the stairwell.

Hawkeye had pulled out a heavy utility knife while she brandished a thin stiletto. They jinked and lunged at each other.

Sweat beaded on their brows. Cuts opened on their arms and in the minutes that felt like hours Natasha realised that while this man may have been her match in skill, her bastardised serum enhancement meant that she was still that bit faster. She could have won.

If she had wanted to.

She had leapt forward. It was a reckless and sloppy attack. Her trainers would have beaten her for such a poor tactic in such a small space.

Hawkeye’s eyes had blown wide in surprise even as he slid to the side and flipped her beneath him. He lashed out and her blade slipped across the floor. He lunged forward and on instinct she grappled his arms. With his body weight and strength he had the advantage as he tried to push his blade into her chest. Her enhanced strength was equalised by their position and his leverage.

Hawkeye kept his head back and out of rage of her teeth and a well-placed headbutt.

He strained still.

Natasha has enhanced agility. She could have used her legs to break free but she merely focused on the blade and his eyes.

Her arms trembled as Hawkeye pushed the blade ever closer to her chest.

Her green eyes met his dark brown orbs.

Something like confusion darted through his eyes.

Later, he would tell Natasha that he realised she wasn’t really fighting back like she could have. He would tell her that he recognised the resignation and pain that he saw in her eyes at that moment.

Natasha was therefore caught off guard when he reared back suddenly and cast the knife aside, so much so that she completely missed his right fist as it smashed into the side of her head and rendered her unconscious. She woke later, bound hand to foot in metal chains on a Quinn Jet. SHIELD agents watched her cautiously and Hawkeye was arguing with Coulson. He tended to her wounds and explained he was taking her in. He was giving her a second chance. He was offering her a rebirth.

Natalia will become Natasha permanently then and to this day she still struggles with why Clint broke every rule to fight for her salvation.

* * *

SHIELD is not what she expected. They give her a choice.

Fury is her commander, Coulson her handler and Clint her partner.

Yet none of them expect sex.

She waits for it. Waits for this institution to demand repayment and favours in kind.

She waits for one of her ‘colleagues’ or commanders to slip into her room at night.

She waits for the invitation that is really an order to attend a ‘private’ sparring practice.

She waits for the briefing meeting where she is expected to offer thanks for the intelligence and being given a second chance.

She waits.

But it never comes.

They never ask, they never demand.

Alongside Clint she becomes part of strike team Delta. They hunt the villains. They seek to do good. There is still espionage and murder put she always knows why. There is always a reason beyond mere greed and power plays. They strike down warlords, cripple people-smugglers and disband sex rings.

It wipes some of the red from her ledger. Natasha actually sleeps after missions. Sleeps better than she has in decades.

When the case of a radical politician with anti-American sentiments and dubious connections to inhumane re-education camps crosses their table they debate a response. Killing him would be difficult. He is too protected for a public assassination which could be attributed to a local faction and their local resources make an ‘accidental death’ tricky.

Natasha waits for them to order her to honeytrap him. He has a well-documented history of philandering and leaving himself vulnerable with his flavour of the month.

Natasha can see it in her mind already. A standard accidental meeting, some flirting, a few dates with mind blowing sex to get his guard down. Then convince him to invite her to his home for a ‘special night.’ Inject him with something untraceable to cause a heart attack. Raid his computers and files and then play the traumatised tart. Scream and cry a bit and his personal guards will rapidly hustle her out of there while also keeping the exact circumstances of his death quiet to prevent a scandal that would mire his ‘legacy.’

Natasha waits for someone to suggest it, but Clint and Coulson keep suggesting increasingly outrageous and dangerous plans of attack.

“I could honeytrap him,” Natasha says calmly.

The room goes silent. Clint sucks in a breath while Coulson drills her with his most assessing stare.

“SHIELD does not require their agents to employ sex to reach an objective,” Coulson says stiffly.

Natasha can read between the lines as she calmly questions,

“But agents can choose to use sex as a tactic to reach an objective if they want, right?”

Natasha raises an amused eyebrow as she asks.

Coulson responds with a small nod even as Clint grits out, “You don’t have to do _that_ Nat. There are other ways.”

Natasha smiles in amusement at Clint, “Are you telling me you have never used sex to get to a target Hawkeye?”

Clint’s bulging jaw muscles are answer enough. Later, Clint will tell Natasha that Hawkeye has seduced both men and women when a mission required it but it was always his choice and a method of last resort.

Natasha nods at the unspoken confirmation, “Just as I thought. I am a Black Widow. This is the work I was made for.”

Rather than reassuring Clint, Natasha sees anger blaze in his gaze. His form locks down in tense lines.

Coulson calmly redirects the meeting to discussing their new approach.

After the mission, Clint watches Natasha with extra care as though he is afraid she will break or that she will be hurt. The sex had been nothing special. The little politician had enjoyed having his ego stroked and getting to leave some bruises around her throat. Nothing new or too imaginative, and yet Clint looks as though he wants to kill the dead politician all over again.

Natasha has always known that she views sex differently to ‘normal’ people but she is a little surprised that even Clint, an American Intelligence operative sees it so differently to her.

She had always assumed operatives would all be a little like her. Uninterested. Detached. Clear eyed enough to see sex as just another tool. Just another form of combat.

She is wrong it seems.

The years pass and between them Natasha and Clint do another half dozen honeytrap or seduction jobs. Between jobs Natasha trains, she reads and enjoys her intellectual pursuits. She comes to enjoy having downtime in a safe place. She dances for pleasure, learns new languages for fun, attends wine tastings for the palate experience and enjoys amusing herself by attending public yoga classes under a variety of ad hoc identities which she plays simply to amuse herself. She has hobbies, interests and pursuits for stress relief.

Sex is not one of them.

Natasha notes that Clint indulges in one night stands between missions. He engages in the amused sexual banter that is common amongst work colleagues. Natasha can bluff, banter and flirt with the best of them. A coy smile, a seductive tease and mischievous allusions to her sexual prowess is enough to convince all of SHIELD that she is the man eating sexpot that the Black Widow program was famed for.

Natasha watches Clint. She sees his easy banter, his sexual energy and how despite the casual nature with which he seeks sexual relief, he still treats each woman with care.

Sex is a hobby for Clint. A pleasurable pastime.

Clint uses sex on missions. He sees how sex makes targets weak and pliable, and yet he still enjoys it and pursues it on his downtime.

It continues to confuse Natasha.

Her confusion is made worse by Clint’s reaction to her.

He teases her and flirts with her, but it is hollow and innocent. A show. They play partners, a married couple, a divorced couple and a range of other cover stories for their missions. Clint kisses her, drapes his arm across her shoulders, holds her hand and a hundred other gestures when missions require it. Natasha watches his body language and pupil reaction after successful missions and missions that have gone awry. She notes his reactions when they have to give a ‘convincing’ performance of public displays of affection for one cover story or another.

Natasha knows that Clint is attracted to her.

She knows he finds her sexually appealing.

She knows that a part of him wants her body.

Yet, Clint never makes a move.

Even when they are pressed into close quarters. Even when they are acting a scene for their cover which has them pelvis to pelvis, Clint never takes liberties. He never pressures her. He never escalates. He never goes beyond what is necessary to maintain their cover.

Any other agent or operative she has worked with in such close quarters over the last century has always pushed for more. Let their hands wander. Squeezed more roughly than they should have. Tried to deepen kisses. Ground and rutted against her for their pleasure.

But Clint never crosses those lines.

Natasha begins wondering if she was mistaken. Does Clint not find her attractive? Has she misread all those subconscious signs? Has his bravado and seductions been an act? Is he really gay and has just been putting on the best act she has ever seen? Is his heterosexuality a cover worthy of his spy credentials that has fooled even the Black Widow?

No, it can’t be.

Missions pass and something foreign like real friendship blooms between Clint and Natasha. She feels a pull towards Clint. A warmth and comfort in his presence that she has never known before.

It feels a lot like trust. A foreign emotion to a Black Widow.

When he is off on a mission she grows concerned about him despite being confident in his abilities.

Natasha grows comfortable at SHIELD. She has an apartment in Manhattan that she actually feels secure in. A boss she respects in Fury. A job that doesn’t make her wish for death, while allowing her to remove some of the red from her ledger. Alongside Clint and Coulson, Natasha tentatively adds Nick Fury, Maria Hill and Melinda May as people she considers something like friends.

A new life and a new desire for life takes hold inside Natasha and it is all because of Clint.

Natasha keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She waits for Clint to make a move on her, for him to take what he is owed, to desire her body and to use her like everyone else. She waits for him to demand repayment of the debt she owes him. She watches him get a little drunk after missions and expects him to make a clumsy pass at her like all the other idiots who have found Dutch courage and allowed their true bestial natures free reign with the application of alcohol. But it never comes. Clint only gives her more. He gives her safety, friendship, stability, his awful sense of humour, loyalty and discretion as he learns more of her secrets than anyone else alive.

When some of the less well-mannered SHIELD Agents make crass comments about her, Clint inevitably arranges a ‘training’ session with them that leaves them black and blue. Natasha could take care of it herself but Clint always beats her to it and never even mentions it, never mind asking for recompense.

Everything finally comes to a head after Budapest. Budapest is the very definition of a mission gone FUBAR.

Clint should have left her behind. SHIELD protocol would have been to abandon her, see the mission intel safely extracted and then return with backup to retrieve her or her body. Common sense would have told any other agent to do that, but Clint risks life and limb on a ‘Hail Mary’ retrieval to come and get her.

After their medical, a week recovering and debrief, Natasha goes down to his room in the Triskelion. She wants to shout at him for his recklessness. She wants to scream and knock some sense into him.

The words don’t come.

Clint gives her a weak smile and offers her a beer. He smiles at her sneer and cutting comment about his unrefined tastes.

They settle on his couch and Clint tries to explain the joys of a crass, juvenile cartoon called Family Guy.

Natasha can see the fading bruises peeking out from below his cotton shirt.

His body heat is comforting as they sit side by side sipping beer.

“Why did you come back for me?” Natasha asks out of the blue. Heat suffuses her cheeks and she feels her ears redden in embarrassment. She had not intended to say that.

Clint looks surprised and caught off guard.

He mutes the stupid cartoon and sets his beer on the metal coffee table.

He shifts to focus on Natasha. His eyes meet hers and she feels her breath stutter as the full weight of his sniper stare rests on her.

“You’re my partner Nat. I will always come for you,” Clint intones. His voice reverberates with sincerity and quiet assurance. An undernote of incredulity makes Natasha shift uncomfortably, as though she has offended him by asking.

Natasha stares at his deep brown eyes and knows that he means every word. That he will come for her every time, simply because they are partners. He will never let her down.

In a moment of clarity Natasha realises that the warmth she feels for Clint has shifted and changed. Sitting mere inches from him she feels pleasant tingles in the pit of her stomach and a growing warmth between her thighs.

Unconsciously her eyes dart down to Clint’s slightly chapped lips and without conscious thought she wets her own lips.

Clint’s pupils are dilating and like two magnets being drawn together they seem to lean towards one another.

Here it is, Natasha thinks. This is it. This is the moment. They will have sex. Clint will get his thank you for saving her and he will continue to be the good partner she has known because she has repaid him.

Natasha pushes herself to the back of her mind and draws forth the courtesan mask that she uses for sex. The mistress of pleasure, oh so responsive and ready to please.

The pleasant tingles die in her stomach. The warmth between her legs disappears as though it has never been.

The sudden cold and loss of pleasant sensation makes her pause for a single eye blink in confusion.

Yet it seems enough for Clint, he has stopped leaning forward. His brows are now drawn down in confusion.

“Where did you go Nat? What’s wrong?” Clint whispers.

His rough right hand, covered in callouses from his bow reaches up to cup her cheek. His movements gentle and slow.

Natasha shakes off her confusion at her loss of desire.

Desire? A Black Widow doesn’t feel desire!

Natasha shakes herself internally and reasserts the persona she needs for this task. She relaxes her features into a sensual mask of desire and presses her cheek into Clint’s hand.

She looks up at him through her lashes, perfectly seductive and lets false heat and desire burn in her eyes. She lets him see that she will be his play thing, his delicious toy.

“I’m right here and the only thing wrong is that you are still all the way over there!”

Natasha expects him to rise to the challenge. To dive forward and close the few inches left between them. She expects burning need and rough hands to begin wandering over her body.

Instead, Clint flinches back from her as though burned. The heat in his eyes dies and he leans back with a look of faint disgust.

Natasha reels as she tries to fathom what she has done wrong. No-one has ever turned her down when she has made such a bold offer. No-one has ever seemed repulsed.

“No, not like this,” Clint grumbles as he leans back against the couch.

Natasha feels her masks drop in her confusion and her real self rise up in desperation as she tries to understand what she has done wrong. Seduction is her speciality. Sex is easy. Why won’t he take it?

Does Clint not find her attractive? She looks at the SHIELD sweats she is wearing since her medical and de-brief and cringes. She should have changed into something more seductive. She should have been prepared. She knew one day sex would be on the table and she has managed to turn Clint off. Foreseeing this when she came to his private quarters should have been easy. She knows he prefers brunettes and the traditional powerful, but modern maternal figure for his sexual conquests. She should have dyed her hair a lighter brown and come here bearing food.

Poor preparation for a Widow.

“What?” Natasha hears herself say ineloquently.

What do you want from me? She wants to ask. How do you want me? What should I look like? How should I have approached you?

Clint sighs and looks at Natasha mournfully, “I don’t want to do this with ‘mission Natasha.’ I don’t want you putting on the mask you use when we are on jobs or the persona you use when teasing in the cafeteria. You were just yourself there Nat. Just Nat, and for a moment I thought you wanted me. I don’t want this to ever happen between us for any reason other than you want it to.”

Natasha freezes.

He thought she wanted him. That can’t be right. Natasha doesn’t enjoy sex. She doesn’t want sex. She doesn’t feel desire…

But, that tingle. That warmth.

Was that…did she want…

Natasha can feel her breathing suddenly accelerate in panic. A panic she has never before felt, not when she was at the mercy of the Mistress or Ivan or any of the other terrible situations she has found herself in over a century of life.

Does she desire Clint? Does she **_want_ ** to have sex?

Is she just like all the other foolish people in the world afterall?

**_Desires make people weak little Natalia. Love is for Children. You are marble._ **

Clint watches Natasha as her frozen body goes stiff and her eyes fill with restrained panic. He stays still and quiet, he lets Natasha think. He lets her reflect.

Natasha’s gaze flits across Clint. His slightly tanned skin, the laugh lines by his eyes and around his mouth. The slight chapping of his lips.

The deep brown of his eyes. The military cut of his hair that even in his mid-twenties has the first hints of grey.

His body is toned, his arms chiselled and refined.

Beyond that however is the quiet tranquillity that surrounds him. The humming potential for humour and his silent confidence.

Clint represents safety and redemption to Natasha.

He is loyalty and friendship. He is the first person she can ever say actually knows most her, all the dark shadows and sharp edges. And yet he still thinks she is good and worthy.

That tingle starts anew in her gut. She focuses on it now. It feels like the blood has rushed away from her belly and left hollow butterflies to tickle her insides. The fleeing blood feels as though it has redirected to the apex between her thighs and a foreign tingly heat settles there. A need for friction.

Warmth like a dry sweat breaks out across her back.

This is desire. This is want. This is arousal.

She wants Clint. She desires him. For the first time in a century, Natasha wants to indulge in the practice of sex, not merely to attain a goal or pay a debt, but for her own pleasure. To be close to someone for no other reason than sharing the experience with them, deepening a bond and seeking pleasure.

The thought is heady and strange. She feels panicked and unsure. She was never trained how to deal with such a feeling. How does she perform when she wants pleasure for herself? What technique does she use? What persona? What positions? What order of sexual acts?

Natasha feels a pull towards Clint but also the unaccustomed tendrils of fear and nervousness pluck at her heart.

Clint’s face has softened as though he can read her sudden realisation.

Natasha unsticks her tongue from her suddenly dry mouth. Dry mouth? Her mouth has never felt dry before sex before, such a bodily response would be inefficient for a Black Widow about to use sex…but she isn’t using sex here. She isn’t a Black widow here.

Here she is Natasha. With Clint. Here she isn’t using sex, here she wants sex.

Natasha swallows around her dry throat and croaks, “I want you Clint…but I have never wanted before. I have never had a choice to want. I have chosen to have sex as part of a mission but that was to achieve a goal. That was a choice of necessity. I have never simply chosen someone because I wanted to. Just because I want them without strings attached.”

Clint’s eyes soften and he shuffles forward to brush his fingers against Natasha’s. Her skin is set aflame and a spark seems to race across her skin where they come in contact.

“What is it you want Nat?” Clint whispers.

Natasha feels her eyes dart down as though she is some blushing virgin. The thought enrages her. She is Natasha Romanoff. She has seduced armies and orchestrated perversions to make Bachas and Venus blush. She is no-one’s shrinking violet.

Natasha straightens her spine and injects her voice with as much false confidence as she can muster.

“I want you Clint. I want to choose you…but I don’t know how to do this when I’m just Natasha. When I’m not playing a role. When I’m not fulfilling someone’s fantasies to achieve a goal. I don’t know how to do this and just be me.”

Clint leans forward and brushes their lips together.

It is soft and almost hesitant as though he is giving Natasha all the time and room to withdraw.

Natasha feels herself kiss him back. Her movements are hesitant, questioning and curious. She kisses for her own pleasure. She focuses on the taste of Clint’s slightly rough lips, the tease of his tongue. She allows her mind to fill itself with the sensations, to bask in his taste and his feel. She responds and shifts to make the kiss better for herself and to draw pleasure not just for him but also for herself.

The feeling is a revelation.

Clint rests his forehead against Natasha’s and they share sipping kisses. Her eyelids feel hooded and her serum enhanced limbs feel almost heavy with drunken lust for the first time in a century.

Clint draws back a breath, “We do this together,” he husks as he scoops her up and marches towards his bed.

Natasha feels a bubbling laugh escape her lips as she curls into his arms and steels kisses as he walks.

A laugh.

Who knew there could be laughter during sex? Who knew it could feel this light and warm?

Clint lays her out on his bed but does not pin her down with his weight but rather slides beside her on the bed. One arm gently ghosting over her rib cage in a tickling caress.

“We have all night Nat. We can go as far as you want or stop whenever you want. This is all your choice,” Clint whispers huskily but with eyes burning with honesty and sincerity.

Natasha can’t find the words but merely nods as she reaches forward to kiss him anew.

That first night isn’t perfect. There is clashing of teeth when they kiss, Natasha squeezes Clint’s arm a little too tight with her enhanced strength when, to his nimble calloused fingers, she falls into her first indulgent orgasm. She apologises for the bruise he will have and the yelp of pain she wrenched from him. He merely smiled in pleased satisfaction that he had been there, been part of it when she had indulged in those sensations for the first time so thoroughly that she forgot her own strength.

When he goes down on her she is hesitant at being so vulnerable. It is a rare female target who wants such privileges with her body and a _very, very_ rare male target who wants to do that, and usually she can persuade them to abandon the desire with distraction or some filthy suggestion. Clint is patient and teasing.

Natasha apologizes profusely after her thighs clamp too hard on his head and his damaged, sensitive ears.

When they finally join together their rhythm is a little haphazard. Natasha gets lost in the sensation of him and looses concentration, her usual perfect clenching walls, well timed thrusting and husked words of encouragement are all forgotten as she submerges herself in sensation. She loses herself in enjoying sex for the first time ever.

When they are both satisfied and exhausted they lie beneath the covers, Natasha feels her blush overcome her face as she reflects on what they did. As she reflects on how selfish she was. Clint only came once from the main event and she didn’t even try to use any of her usual tricks or exotic moves on him. She has short changed him.

By Red Room standards her performance was lacking. She was unfocused and uncoordinated. She was clumsy and at times so lost in her own head that she lost track of giving Clint pleasure.

The part of Natasha that is still Natalia, the girl created to be perfect, feels embarrassed at her poor performance.

“I’m sorry. I can do better. I can make it better for you, “ Natasha whispers in mortification into Clint’s broad chest, her tone begging for forgiveness and a second chance to prove that she can do this right.

Clint merely tightens his hold on her for an instant, a reassuring pressure. His head ducking to deposit a brief kiss across the crown of her head as he husks, “It was perfect. It was real.”

An odd calmness settles over Natasha at Clint’s reassurance. She feels warm and satisfied as she drifts towards sleep in contented bliss for the first time in her long life.

* * *

That was the first time Natasha knew the joys of sex. The first time she felt desire and indulged in something so close to love.

This would be her first choice. Her first step to a new life.

It would not be the last, and in a few short years she would meet Laura who would spark a whole new journey of pleasure, of discovery and of revelations of her worthiness.

But that as they say is another story. Another long and complex story for another time. 

* * *

**End of Chapter One**

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Critique? Kudos?


End file.
